My new dog Tootsie

Welcome to Chi People. Thank you so much for rescuing her. Give her time with the shyness, let her come to you, lots of treats at first. Try sitting on the ground, to a small dog, we are giants and until they trust you, a reaching hand could mean hurt to her. For pottying, start by taking her outside every hour or so and everytime she pees or poos, you make like it's the most wonderful thing in the world. Praise and give a small treat. It will take a little time for it to click, but she will get it. All messes in the house ignore as much as you can, maybe make a little disappointed sound, and clean very well with an enyme cleaner to get the smell out so she doesn't go back there again. Don't give her a lot of freedom in the house until she is more reliable so she can't hide and do her business. Are you training her for outside or to pee pads? I use both, but a lot of people use one or the other. Do you have a crate or pen for her? If you work, where will she be and for how long? If you work long hours, I would suggest either an x-pen or locking her in the bathroom with a pee pad, toys, a bed or blankets, food and water. Most of my chis all sleep on my bed at night, I have a few that prefer to sleep in a crate or a dog bed in my bedroom. Do you free feed or do meals? And what food do you feed? Try to pick the best 4 to 5 star brand of kibble you can afford. Here is a great website that breaks down the value of the different kibble.

Dog Food Analysis - Reviews of kibble

A lot on here go grain-free or RAW, you could also look into that. That all I can think of off the top of my head right now, I need my morning cuppa coffee before I can come up with anything more. If you have ANY questions, throw them out and we have a bunch of helpful people here that will be glad to give stories on what worked for them.

Congrats on your new Chi! It's normal for her to be nervous at first. Give her some time and she will warm up.

If you are outdoor training her, taking her out every single hour and give her the same command every time to do her business. When she does, praise her like she did the most amazing thing in the world and you can even give her a little treat. Just keep doing this and she will catch on in a few weeks. You will want to limit her access around the house too. Limit her to a space where you can easily keep an eye on her. You don't want her running off around any corners and pottying behind your back. The less mistakes you let her make, the faster she will learn how to go outside.

If you are pad training, designate a spot for her pads and put down up to 4 pads all next to each other and make a giant square. Take her to this spot every hour like if you were taking her outside and give her the potty command and praise when she goes. Gradually take away one pad at a time as she gets better at using them until you're down to just one. I wouldn't recommend putting pads all over the place in every room to begin with because if you don't want them there forever, you're just going to have another habit to work on breaking in the future. I have pad trained Gemma and she's only ever had a pad in the living room and in our bedroom. Now I don't want the pad in the bedroom and I am having to very slowly inch it out of the room and towards her pad in the living room so I can eliminate it. If I just remove one of her pads from their normal spots, she will still potty in that spot by habit, so I can't just take it away immediately.

I do not recommend using pads at all if your goal is to have her only go outside in the end. Pads are a difficult habit to break once you start and will cause extra confusion with her training. Just choose one method and be consistent with it and she will learn quickly. Good luck!